So, I’m totally aware that I’m one of the few native Floridians without a tan. I lived in Boston for about seven years, and during that time, my skin slowly faded to Addams-Family-relative status. Since then, I’ve totally embraced my paleness along with my SPF 50 sunscreen.

Despite my pale skin tone, I still really enjoy time spent outside! I think a lot of people assume that Floridians that live near the beach spend all of their free time there, and sadly, it’s just not true. Many of us probably definitely take the beach for granted, and I’m hoping that changes for my family soon. I do foresee a future of many beach days with my baby girls, because the beach is fun, free, and they love spending time in the water!

I envision being one of those people that can text my girlfriends with “Beach Day?” and we all just head there in our swimsuits with only a towel in tow. However, I’m totally realistic and I’m one of those people that really likes to have every possible thing I could ever need. I know that sounds like a pain, but come hang out at the beach with me and you will never go back to your days of going sans supplies.

So, you can imagine my excitement when Bruno from Sand Cloud sent me one of their fabulous towels with a built-in pillow! I didn’t realize I needed a towel with a built in pillow, but now that I have one – HOW DID I EVER GO TO THE BEACH WITHOUT ONE? The guys at Sand Cloud just launched their Kickstarter for the product and I was more than happy to support their campaign. Watch their video here:

My Sand Cloud is purple and while I haven’t had a chance to test it out at the beach yet, we did take it outside this weekend and put it to use. It’s very lightweight and soft and it can double as a perfect sarong if you need a little more coverage at the beach or at the pool. By supporting the Sand Cloud Kickstarter with $30 you can receive your very own Sand Cloud towel.

Leave me a comment and let me know if you plan on ordering your own Sand Cloud. Also, leave a comment with what your must-have beach item is – I’m always looking for new things to bring on my outdoor excursions!

I received free product from Sand Cloud. All thoughts and opinions regarding the product are my own.

I received Mustachifiers as gifts for the girls from my cousin and her husband!

I was really excited to learn that the brand expansion included Baby Opticals. It’s never too early to start building your kids’ accessories collection – and that includes sweet sunglasses. My girls already have a few pairs of sunglasses, but after browsing the Baby Opticals collection, I saw at least four more pairs that I would love to get for them!

The Baby Opticals line features 100% UVA and UVB protection, as well as polarized, shatter-resistant frames in an assortment of colors: Black, Blue, Pink, White, and Yellow. The Baby Opticals line likewise offers chic Black and White glasses for the burgeoning hipster baby, also providing the 100% UVA and UVB protection. They’re great for kids ages 0-4 years and are $14.99.

The folks over at Mustachifier sent me a pair of Baby Opticals in Black to try out. I put them on the girls and snapped a few photos:

My girls are 9 months old, so they are still at an age where they prefer to put accessories directly into their mouths. Every single pair of sunglasses they own ends up in their mouths within five minutes of wearing them, and Baby Opticals were no exception! Something that I really liked about the Baby Opticals was that they include a band to go around the back of your child’s head, which is great for when your baby inevitably pulls the sunglasses off of their face. No more lost sunglasses!

Overall, the Baby Opticals sunglasses were great and totally cute, obviously. My girls actually do a better job of wearing them for long periods of time when they’re out in the sun and not just sitting in the rocking chair for a quick photo session. I’m sure I’ll share some more photos in the future when I buy some of the other adorable styles of Baby Opticals.

May is such a joyous month for me. I love that I get to celebrate my anniversary, my birthday, and Mother’s Day all within 2 weeks of each other. All of these delightful things to celebrate was the perfect reason for a quick trip to New Orleans!

Ben and I took our first trip without the girls and spent a couple of nights in the Big Easy drinking, eating, and laughing to excess.

We go into New Orleans early Friday morning and headed straight for Cafe Du Monde. I can’t be in New Orleans for more than four hours without getting my beignet fix and this trip was no different. I was on a serious mission to eat!

We killed some time walking around the French Quarter before heading over to Tujuague’s to meet up with Eric from NOLA Beer Tours. Before heading to New Orleans, I browsed Groupon to see if there were any good deals worth checking out. I sent Ben a link to the beer tour and asked if he’d be interested and of course he was! So we booked it and looked forward to taking the tour.

Our tour guide Eric was super nice and informative and gave us a lot of information about the beers we were drinking, history of craft beers in New Orleans, and general history of New Orleans. I actually learned a few things I didn’t know previously. Aside from Tujuague’s, we also visited Crescent City Brewhouse, Evangeline, and Beer Fest. The highlight of the tour was most definitely Evangeline with their beautiful courtyard and great beer selection. We went back again on Saturday for a couple of beers before our dinner reservation.

Saturday was the day I had been waiting for for weeks! I had been planning to eat and drink my way through New Orleans on Saturday, and we did just that!

We kicked the day off by having breakfast at Red Gravy. I read the Yelp reviews and it seemed as though the chicken and waffles were a popular choice. I am all for some delicious chicken and waffles, so that was the obvious option for me. They were good! The waffles were delicious and the cranberry habenero jam that came with them was out of this world! I thought the chicken was just okay, but I would order the dish again just for that jam.

We left the restaurant absolutely stuffed and waddled our way to the streetcar to head out to my mom’s house. After spending an hour visiting with family, everyone wanted to go eat lunch. I honestly couldn’t imagine eating anything else, but we went along for fun. We ended up going to Mahony’s Po-Boy Shop and after looking over their menu, Ben and I decided to split one of their award winning small fried chicken livers and slaw po-boy. I don’t even have any pictures of it because we demolished that thing and it was delicious!

We headed back to the quarter a few hours later and went out for drinks. I was still so full from breakfast and lunch that I couldn’t even imagine drinking, but we did it! Then, if you can even believe it, we went back to our condo to get ready to go out for dinner. As if I wasn’t excited enough about everything I’d eaten so far, I was most excited about our plan to eat dinner at Restaurant R’evolution.

Even though we called weeks ahead of time, we weren’t able to get a reservation for dinner on Saturday night, but we had plans to eat dinner at the bar to celebrate our anniversary. We got seats at the bar upon arriving and excitedly perused the cocktail menu. I got the Strawberry Smash which was a bourbon drink with muddled strawberries, mint, and lemon and it was phenomenal! Every single bit of our meal was amazing. I’m not going into all of the details but we had the Beer Battered Crab Beignets, the Black Truffle Beef Tartare, the Oysters on the Half Shell, the Death by Gumbo, the Goat Cheese Tortelli (pictured below), and finished with the Carrot Cake Beignets.

We rolled ourselves out of R’evolution and headed to Harrah’s to try our luck at a little roulette. We didn’t spend much time there, but we left a few dollars richer! We decided to spend our money on some cocktails and headed over to one of my favorite spots: the Carousel Bar at the Hotel Monteleone. If you’ve never been, the Carousel Bar is the city’s only revolving bar. It only seats 25 people and late at night it’s almost impossible to grab a seat, but we somehow managed to grab two seats! We settled in and I ordered a Sazerac (pictured below) that I sipped on for the duration of our time there. We met a few interesting characters, but overall enjoyed our time alone together.

Of course, come Sunday morning, I was in desperate need of a detox. I didn’t want to eat another deliciously large meal or drink any more cocktails. I was ready to be home in my pajamas snuggled up on the couch with my sweet baby girls and my puppy. However, I did meet up with my family for breakfast at Surrey’s to celebrate Mother’s Day. Everyone else had amazingly decadent breakfasts, but I went the plain route and ordered a bagel. I wasn’t kidding when I said I didn’t want another big meal. We spent a few more hours in the Garden District before heading to the airport.

I was so happy to get home to my little babies and love on them. I had an amazing weekend away filled with delicious food, strong drinks, and much-needed alone time with Ben, but the best part about my weekend was getting to snuggle my girls on Mother’s Day.